The Curious Case of Christopher Comtois (Part IV)

Laney

    

     The investigation began immediately.  Geoff Laney had been waiting for this opportunity for his whole police career.  He wore a uniform and gave out tickets and put himself in harms way on a daily basis for many years. And now he was a detective.  Instead of showing up to crimes in progress, he was now the guy who came later and was going to try to solve them.   What had happened to the cheerleader was awful.  No child should ever have to endure what this girl went through.  Things like this can affect a young person for the rest of their lives.  She was violated.  Held against her will.  Forced by a sick adult to bare witness to a lewd act.  She was scared and scarred.  Her parents, friends and family were horrified and saddened beyond what the normal mind can comprehend.  And now Detective Laney was in charge in trying to piece together all of the facts and find the person responsible for this crime and arrest him.

     The first thing that would have to happen would be to interview everyone involved in the course of the evening.  Witnesses.  The coaches, the chaperone's, the cheerleaders, the hotel staff and, of course, the victim.  Geoff Laney had been trained to do this.  He was eager to use his years of police work to bring the perpetrator to justice.  It would be slow and methodical.  He had to gather the facts, use his judgment and instinct and make the right decisions.  This had to be solved.  Everyone involved in this and everyone who would soon read about this would be counting on him to do his job and close the case with a conviction. Crimes like this cannot go cold.  The person responsible must pay.  And he started by asking questions.  

     One by one he conducted his interviews that morning.  It was early Sunday and people were tired, frayed and still in shock.  But facts and memories get fuzzy and skewed every hour or day that goes by after a crime is committed.  So the investigation has to start immediately.  The team would not be competing in the competition.  Their fun was over.  And they would be staying in Orlando longer than expected.  The girl's parents were already on their way down to Florida.  But as he began to add up what had happened late at night and early that same morning, he felt that the advantage was on his side.  Each person he talked to relayed several important facts that he felt put him way ahead of the curve.  Without even leaving the hotel, on day one of the case, he knew who did it.  He had a photo of the guy posing with the entire group.  He had key personal information about him.  He had his website address.  He had video of him in the hotel and leaving the hotel.  He had identifying body information about him.  And he had his name.  Each person that Laney spoke with gave the exact same story.  And every one of them gave him the same name that this person had given them: Chris Justice.  

     After leaving the hotel and heading back to his office, it seemed pretty obvious to Geoff Laney what he had to do:  find Chris Justice.  There were no facts to be argued.  He knew exactly what had happened.  He had over 25 statements saying the exact same thing.  The person in question showed up, talked to them all, freely gave away information about himself, his life making music and playing in bands and had posed for a photo. He stayed at the hotel after he left the group and showed up again at the room of four girls who were still awake.  He exposed himself repeatedly.  He asked questions that adults don't ask young girls and he said things to them that people don't usually say out loud in public.  After he left, he waited in the stairwell and watched the room until one of the girls left to go downstairs.  He talked her into coming to him.  He detained her by force and against her will, touched her and then masturbated until he climaxed.  Then he let her go and left the hotel.  And because he concluded his crime by ejaculating, he had left his DNA for the forensic team to bring back to their lab.  Laney had it all and now all he had to do was find him.  A slam dunk, if you will.  Any time there is a crime of this nature in any town in America, it becomes public.  It would be in the newspapers. It would be on television. He would be in the newspapers and on television.  His first case would end quickly with an arrest and eventual conviction.  Justice served.  His bosses would be happy.  The victim and her parents would be relieved.  Everyone who knew about the case would feel good about the Orlando Police Department. Great first case.  

     When he got to his office, the excitement he felt was overwhelming.  He wouldn't sleep until this was over.  He immediately got to work.  The first thing he did was simply type in the names "Chris" and "Christopher" "Justice" into the Florida Department of Motor Vehicle data base.  If the guy lived in Florida and had a drivers license, he would be in the system.  What came up was over 20 persons named Chris or Christopher Justice. He looked at each Chris Justice intently.  He looked at their photos.  He looked at their physical descriptions. He looked at where they lived.  Since he already had a photo of Chris Justice and more information than most investigations ever get, he had a pretty good idea of what he was looking for.  Some of the guys that came up in the search were easy to discard.  They were black.  They were young.  They weren't even male.  Each one was eliminated.  In fact, most were eliminated almost immediately.  But one Chris Justice wasn't.  Although it was only his drivers’ license photo and basic information, there were too many red flags to miss.  Even the worst detective in America could figure this out.  Barney Fife wouldn't miss this.  Around the same time that Laney was narrowing his search, the crime lab delivered the photo that had been taken the night before.  The photo of the entire group including Chris Justice as well as his face blown up in a separate picture.  As he looked at the images that he was just given, he looked at the drivers’ license photo of the Chris Justice that he had on his computer screen.  He looked at one and then the other.  Again and again.  And he knew he had his guy.  Although the man who posed with the group at the hotel was wearing a black stocking cap, his face was clear.  And that man was the same as the man posing for his drivers’ license.  He knew it.  He called over a few other detectives and they agreed.  They were looking at the same guy.  There were too many similarities. Same facial features and same name.  Plus, the guy Laney had found on his computer lived in Orlando. Case closed.  Go get the guy, arrest him and receive your accolades and congratulations.  

     Knowing who committed a crime and finding them are two completely different components of police work.  He still had some work to do.  A lot of it.  You can't issue an arrest warrant based on a name and a photo matched with a drivers’ license.  Some crimes begin with knowing who did it but never finding them.  Criminals don't want to be found. They run.  They hide.  They know they broke the law and the last thing they want is to go to jail.  They become elusive.  It's not often that a crime is committed, the police know who did it and they find the person asleep on the couch at the address listed on their driver’s license.  That would be way too easy.  Laney would have to start digging.   He would have to formulate a plan.  It would be two-fold.  He would create a photo "line-up" with his guy's license picture along with six or seven other faces on the same page. Guys with the same name.  He would then go and show this to each of the people he had interviewed that morning. He'd ask each of them if the person they met was pictured on the page.  At the same time, he'd begin to dig into Chris Justice's past.  He'd go and find out where he worked.  Where he lived.  Since he had his name and social security number, it wouldn't be too hard to get a background check.  This would take some time and legwork but he was anxious to get the wheels in motion.  He gave the research department the basic information on Chris Justice and asked for all of the information that they could get on him.  Then he called the hotel to let the school group know that he was coming over to talk to them again.  He had his photo line up put together and headed back across town to where he was just hours previous.  

     When he arrived back at the hotel, he gathered the group together again.  The victim's parents had arrived and they were back up in their room.  He would talk to them last.  He explained to everyone that he would be speaking with each of them separately again, just as he had in the morning.  The hotel staff let him use the conference room and another police officer brought each person over one by one to talk to Laney.  When they entered the room and sat down, the detective explained that he would be showing them a document that had multiple people pictured.  He gave them no other information other than to let him know if the person who they met was pictured on that page.  As much as he wanted to tip them off that they were all named Chris Justice and that one of them had to be their guy, he couldn't.  Leading witnesses is the kind of thing that gets cases thrown out of court.  He knew the rules and he didn't want to mess this up on a technicality.  Defense attorneys would sort through every move that he made during the investigation and look for anything that was out of bounds.  He knew other detectives who had gotten burned by this and he certainly didn't want his first case to go down that way.  As each cheerleader, coach, supervising adult or hotel staff came and went, three out of every four chose the person that Laney knew to be the right one.   And when he showed the victim, she chose him too.  He had over a 75% positive identification.  

     Before Laney left the hotel to get on with the second part of his plan, the adults from the group stopped him to ask questions about what was happening.  They were concerned.  They wanted to know how long this all would take.  They wanted to know what he knew.  All Laney could tell them was that he had some strong leads that he was getting ready to follow up on.  He let them know that he had a suspect and that he anticipated some news in the near future.  Investigations take time and he would be working tirelessly to bring this to a positive conclusion.  He informed them that he had just about everything that he needed from them and that they were free to leave at any time.  He would be in contact and would keep them all in the loop.  Everyone was very confident that Laney had a handle on everything and that they were in good hands.  He reminded them that the hardest and slowest part was gathering information and that they may not hear any updates for awhile.  But he reassured them all that he was confident that there would be a resolution.  He left the hotel and headed back to the station.  His work was just getting started.  

     Over the days and weeks to follow, Laney began to work the leads given to him by the research department.  He had an entire file on Chris Justice.  He knew that he had lived in three different Florida cities in three years.  He knew that he was from Missouri and that his mother still lived there.  He knew that he was a school teacher and had moved to Colorado in August.  He knew his current employer, his past employers, his previous addresses and his current address in Denver.  He knew his criminal record.  He knew that he had spent most of his adult life working with children.  He didn't see anything about him being a musician but he was sure that it would come to light at some point.  Not everything that he had been told by the witnesses about this person was in the file but that's why people aren't arrested for facts on paper.  He would have to go out and talk to people.  Friends, co-workers, apartment managers, etc.  Everyone connected to this Chris Justice would become a source of information.  He had given the information that he already had to his superiors and they gave him the go-ahead to conduct his investigation as he chose.  He had the green light to go anywhere and ask anyone what he wanted.  

     Detective work can be slow and tedious.  The police have to make absolute sure that the path they are on is leading or at least can lead to the right outcome.  When mistakes are made, reputations can be damaged. Lawsuits can be brought.  Jobs can be lost.  So Detective Laney took his time.  He didn't want his first case to end in failure.  He checked and double checked.  He thought and rethought his next move.  But he knew he was on the right track.  So, for the remainder of January and most of February he went out and he gathered the information he needed to get an arrest warrant and put Chris Justice behind bars.  Any misstep and the suspect may run and then the whole ball game would change.  He had to be careful.  

     He had Justice's past in his folder.  Instead of just going to Colorado and trying to interrogate him immediately he chose to build his case by starting in Orlando.  He visited his former apartment complex. Nothing interesting there.  Next, he decided to go ahead and open the can of worms and head out to the school where he had worked the year previous.  This can be tricky since he'd be talking to people who knew him.  People he was friends with.  And that can lead to one of those people making a phone call to Justice and making him flee.  He knew that child predators often led double lives.  He had spoken to police specialists on the subject.  Predators are often normal citizens.  They may have families.  Good jobs.  They also may move around often.  But they are often in denial about their criminal activity.  Child predators try to justify their actions.  They may believe that what they are doing is good for children.  More than likely, Laney thought, Justice had returned to his "other" life and hadn't given his actions in Orlando a second thought.  Many predators don't have any related criminal behavior in their past.  They had never been caught.  There are many victims who don't come forward out of shame.  Or the assailant has convinced them that either no one would believe them or that they would be forever labeled.  Sometimes they threaten violence in order to keep their victims silent.  Laney believed that Justice was living his life in Denver without fear but if one of his friends let him know that the police were asking questions, he may leave.  So he had to tread lightly.  But he knew that he had the right suspect.  He just had to everything by the book.

     Sometime in mid-February, Laney walked into Orlando Lutheran Academy.  He had called ahead to try to set up a meeting with the principal.  He already had collected information about Justice and his time at the school.  He knew what subjects he taught, sports he coached and had the names of the faculty and students. When he finally got the principal, Mr. Wudke, on the phone, he introduced himself and asked him if he could come down to talk to him as well as some other teachers about Chris Justice.  Wudke asked what this was in reference to, but Laney could not tell him anything except that it was an ongoing investigation.  Wudke said that it would be OK for him to come but that he would be out of the office until the afternoon.  He gave him permission to talk to anyone that he needed.  When Laney got to the school, the secretary gave him the teachers’ schedules, directions to individual rooms and a visitor's pass.  Laney was free to roam as he chose. Over the next few hours he sat down with several teachers that worked with Chris Justice the year previous.  He asked them questions about his personality.  How well they knew him.  Was he a good teacher or not.  He asked if they ever witnessed Justice doing anything strange or odd.  Did he ever know of him having any contact with students one on one in a private environment?  Had they heard students ever talking about him or rumors of unusual activity?  Everyone knew him.  It was a small school and everyone knew everyone else. Regardless of how well the person Laney talked to knew Chris Justice, there was nothing alarming or out of order in their recollection of him.  But he was gathering more leads that he would be able to follow later.  He now knew that he had a girlfriend last year that worked at one of the Disney parks.  He knew that he played baseball in a men's league.  He played rugby.  The detective learned more names of friends that he may be able to talk to.  At some point in each conversation, usually in the beginning, the teacher or staff member would ask what this was regarding.  Was Chris in trouble?  Laney could only say that he was part of an ongoing investigation.  And that was it.    

     There were a few older students that Laney wanted to talk to that day.  Kids that were in his class or played a sport that he coached.  He didn't go into the detail that he did with the adults, but he did want to get some information from students.  He wondered if they had ever heard any strange rumors about Mr. Justice. Whether or not they had ever observed him doing anything out of the ordinary around other students.  Although he got some colorful answers, nothing that any of them said was unusual.  

     As he got new information, he would add it to the questions he would ask the next person.  What was his girlfriend's name?  Where at Disney did she work?  And he always asked what brand of cologne he wore.  At the conclusion of each discussion, Laney would pull out an 8 by 10 photograph with the face of a man pictured.  He would slide the photo towards the person and ask them if they recognized him.  None did.  He would ask again.  Ask them to look closer.  No one knew the man in the picture.  Every person he spoke with gave him no bombshells of information.  They worked with him for an entire school year and nothing that they could recall set off any alarms.  And no one identified the person in the picture.  To everyone shown the picture, the man in it was a stranger.  Laney had spoken at length with Mr. and Mrs. Bailey, both teachers that were good friends with Justice, and neither had anything of use about him.  Mrs. Bailey spoke about Justice coaching the girls varsity basketball team with her.  She relayed that there was never a time that anything odd occurred with Justice and the team.  She gave him some names of former students that she knew was still in contact with him.  Although he knew that his Chris Justice was the same Chris Justice that held a girl against her will and masturbated on her in a stairwell, none of his co-workers gave him anything that would be usable.  No one indicated that their Chris Justice had any musical ability at all.  And they had no recollection of him being in a band.  He would follow up with the names and information he had gathered but he still had one more person to talk to.

     Principal Wudke still wasn't back at school yet, so Laney went back to the desk of the Athletic Director, Mr. Bortz.  He already knew that he was pretty good friends with Justice and had been out socially with him.  It was more of the same.  No startling revelations or additional leads.  When Laney was wrapping up the interview as he had with everyone else, he pulled out the photo and asked Bortz if he recognized the man in it. As he was looking at the photo, Mr. Wudke, who had just returned, was walking by.  He was completely unaware of what was happening, but he stopped as Bortz held the photograph and said, "That's Chris Justice."  Mr. Bortz disagreed, but even after Wudke took a closer look at the man in the photo, he again said that he thought that it was the Chris Justice who had worked for him the previous year. Laney was in business.  Although his conversation with Wudke in his office offered nothing in regards to new information, the principal stood by his photo identification.  As he left the school, Laney became convinced that Justice had many friends at the school who, although they didn't know why he was there asking questions, were protecting him by not identifying him in the photo.  He concluded that since Wudke was Justice's supervisor, he probably didn't have any sort of social friendship with him and he was unbiased to tell him that the photo was in fact him.  They all had lied to protect Chris Justice.  

     Every teacher at school that day was shaken up by the experience.  Not only was an Orlando police detective interviewing each of them about a former co-worker for reasons unknown, but they were left with a threat.  Laney instructed them all that if they contacted Chris Justice or he contacted them that they were to make no mention that he had been there asking questions about him.  If they made any attempt to inform him about what had occurred in any way, they would be arrested for obstruction of Justice.  He made this very clear and warned them more than once before ending their talk. 

     Over the next few days Laney spent most of this time on the phone.  There was no need to go in person to talk to all of these other associates.  The one person that he was most interested in talking to was a former student and athlete who had graduated the year previous.  Her name was Amanda and she was in his senior government and then economics class.  She also played basketball for him and now was an assistant for Coach Bailey at the school as she went to college.  He knew from the information that he had gotten at school that she still communicated with him on occasion.  He hoped that perhaps her or one of her friends had some sort of knowledge of criminal contact with him.  He coordinated a time to meet with Amanda and he asked many of the same questions that he had asked the staff.  He asked about his girlfriend and about his cologne preference.  She had no idea.  He told her that he had already spoken with the other teachers at the school. He finished with the threat of arrest if she made any mention of the conversation with Chris just as he had with every other friend and co-worker of his that he talked to.

     This was the last week of February and nearly seven weeks had gone by since the night of the crime.  Geoff Laney was growing frustrated because although he knew he had the right suspect, he still didn't have enough to arrest him.  He had positive identifications via photo lineup from 75% of the witnesses who met the man that said his name was Chris Justice.  He had a school principal and former supervisor who identified the real suspect as the Chris Justice he was investigating.  He had the profile from the child crime experts that matched up with some of his guy's past.  And he knew he was right.  But to get an arrest warrant, he would need more.  He needed to connect just a few more dots and was sure that those dots were right around the corner.  As the victim's parents called for updates, they were growing anxious.  Laney continued to tell them that he was close, just as he had the day that it happened.  He tried to assure them that an arrest would be made soon.  They tried to remain patient but the calls became more frequent.  Any parent of a young woman who had this happen to them is hurt, angry and wants answers.  Answers that they were currently not getting.  Supervisors began to ask questions about the investigation. Geoff Laney was suddenly coming under the gun.  He thought that he was on the fast track from day one, and now, nearly two months later, he was bogged down.  He needed something to happen soon.